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Secretary-General of the United Nations
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the Secretariat of the United Nations, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General also acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the United Nations. The current Secretary-General is Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who took office on 1 January 2007. His first term will expire on 31 December 2011. He was re-elected, unopposed, to a second term on 21 June 2011.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13868655 Ban Ki-moon wins second-term as UN Secretary General Role The Secretary-General was envisioned by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "world moderator," but the office was defined in the UN Charter as the organization's "chief administrative officer" (Article 97). Nevertheless, this more restricted description has not prevented the office holders from speaking out and playing important roles on global issues, to various degrees. The official residence of the Secretary-General is a five-story townhouse in the Sutton Place, Manhattan, in New York City, USA. The townhouse was built for Anne Morgan in 1921, and donated to the United Nations in 1972.Teltsch, Kathleen. "Town House Offered to U. N.", The New York Times, 15 July 1972. Accessed 27 December 2007. Term and selection was a particularly active UN Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961. Hammarskjöld acted as a mediator during the Suez Crisis and the 1960 capture of a US reconnaissance plane by the USSR. He also established the first UN peacekeeping force that had been proposed by Canadian Minister of External Affairs, Lester B. Pearson.]] Secretaries-General serve for five-year terms that can be renewed indefinitely, although none so far has held office for more than two terms.Secretary-General Appointment Process The United Nations Charter provides for the Secretary-General to be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. As a result, the selection is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the Security Council. The UN Charter's terse language has since been supplemented by other procedural rules and also accepted practices. In practice, the Secretary-General cannot be a national of any of the Permanent Members of the Security Council. An accepted practice of regional (continental) rotation has also been adopted in the selection of successive candidates. The ability of candidates to converse in both English and French is also considered an unofficial qualification for the office. Most Secretaries-General are compromise-candidates from middle powers and with little prior fame. High-profile candidates are often touted for the job, but are almost always rejected as unpalatable to some. For instance, figures like Charles de Gaulle, Dwight Eisenhower, and Sir Anthony Eden were considered for the first Secretary-General position, but were rejected in favour of the uncontroversial Norwegian Trygve Lie. Dag Hammarskjöld remains the only Secretary-General to have died in office. In the early 1960s, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev led an effort to abolish the Secretary-General position. The numerical superiority of the Western powers combined with the one state, one vote system meant that the Secretary-General would come from one of them, and would typically be sympathetic towards the West. Khrushchev advanced a proposal to replace the Secretary-General with a three-person leading council (a "troika"): one member from the West, one from the Communist states, and one from the Non-Aligned powers. This idea failed because the neutral powers failed to back the Soviet proposal. Secretaries-General Note: Alger Hiss was Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, held in April to June 1945. See also * Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations * List of Secretaries-General of the United Nations by longevity * Global democracy * International Court of Justice * League of Nations * Mundialization * Presidential election * Reform of the United Nations * United Nations Economic and Social Council * United Nations General Assembly * United Nations Secretariat * United Nations Security Council * United Nations Trusteeship Council * Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations * United Nations System * World government References External links *UN Secretary-General webpage **How is the Secretary-General appointed? * Global Policy Forum – UN Secretary-General * Report on the process of appointing a new Secretary-General * Who Will be the Next Secretary-General? (website on the 2006 campaigns) * UNSGselection.org – a campaign for a more democratic selection process Category:United Nations Secretariat *Secretary-general